Full coverage: Development

31.05.2006 After a delay of five months, the first draft of 11th Plan Approach Papers reached the PMO for approval.According to sources, despite nagging disagreements on the resource mobilisation issue, which kept eluding a consensus, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Aluwaliah finally submitted the papers for approval.

31.05.2006 The European Union Foreign Ministers on Monday ordered the listing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a banned organisation. Western diplomats said that the decision was taken at a meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council in Brussels.

31.05.2006 Education Minister Lt Gen (r) Javed Ashraf Qazi has said 45 percent of students dropped out before completing their primary education, and there were a number of factors behind this high rate. We are giving salaries lower than domestic servants’ to teachers. What can you expect them to deliver? What results can matriculate 3rd division teachers produce?

31.05.2006 El municipio de Puerto Cortés en la costa atlántica hondureña ha lanzado una campaña de alfabetización que pretende terminar con el analfabetismo en un plazo de un año, apoyados por pedagogos cubanos que implementarán el método “Yo si puedo”...

30.05.2006 If equity, justice, redressal are not built into our ICT strategies, all we will have accomplished is to upgrade our worlds, not change them. A person form Andhra spoke to Samuha members of how a person with a disability had accessed financial assistance through the government's ICT kiosks, and how, immediately after, a Panchayat official had come up to this person, and had asked him to ‘deposit' the funds with him.

30.05.2006 Of the 680 million children of primary school age in developing countries, 103 million do not attend school, with 57 percent of these children girls and 74 percent living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. More than 1/3rd of girls in South Asia never receive a formal education; adult women there have the lowest literacy rate in the world.

30.05.2006 The Non-Aligned Movement, which exists to give voice to developing countries and advance a more democratic international order, must move forward with the United Nations towards their shared goals, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

30.05.2006 The National Human Rights Commission should revamp its mandate in the light of massive institutionalised corruption that has left no institution in India untouched.An opinion by C. Raj Kumar.

30.05.2006 India has launched "Operation Marham" (Operation Balm) under which it is rushing naval ships and Indian Air Force aircraft loaded with relief supplies and medical aid to earthquake-affected Indonesia.

30.05.2006 The Government of A.P issued the much-awaited DSC (District Selection Committee)-2006 notification for recruitment of as many as 20,193 teachers to strengthen and stabilise the school system in the State at the primary level.

30.05.2006 Indonesia's government declared a state of emergency late on thr night of 28 May 2006 after a quake killed more than 4,600 people early on 27 May. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the emergency period would last three months and the government aimed to complete "reconstruction and rehabilitation" within a year.

29.05.2006 THE strategies for poverty alleviation and development followed by the countries in Asia and the Pacific region have high relevance for Bangladesh where more than 80 per cent of its people have a rural existence and the majority of them remain below the poverty line. An opinion by Mustafa Jasim Ahmed.

29.05.2006 Women’s unpaid housework may be of critical importance in the determination of household wellbeing, but unfortunately it does not get as much recognition as paid work does. In order to get such recognition, many recent studies are advocating an inclusion of the imputed value of women’s unpaid work in the construction of national accounts (see, for example, Levy Institute-UNDP, 2005). Even if women were able to achieve official recognition of their work, still their bargaining power within the household would likely be lower than that of men if they are not able to make monetary contributions to the joint resources of the household.

29.05.2006 India's prime minister pledged on Monday to fight poverty and share the wealth of economic success as his government nears the halfway mark of its first term, but said he would not do so at the cost of strong growth.

29.05.2006 As South Asia enjoys unprecedented economic growth, soaring summer temperatures have highlighted a chronic shortage of electricity that is crippling enterprise and leaving millions to suffer without any hope of respite, reports.

29.05.2006 India said it is ready to work with Nepal in the development and fostering of democracy in the Himalayan country.This was stated by the Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma during talks with Nepal's Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister K P Sharma Oli, here on the sidelines of the Ministerial Meeting of the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

29.05.2006 Technical education institutions in Rajasthan will adopt nearby villages from the next academic session to promote self-employment among the youth and women by imparting vocational education to them.

29.05.2006 Indians are clinging on to the age-old gospel that ‘Good sons take care of aged parents’. They have little choice in a country where social security is nearly non-existent.

29.05.2006 The number of students from Dalit communities has decreased drastically in primary schools in Amargadi municipality after the suspension of FfE programme. Dadheldhura District Education Office announced the suspension of Food for education programme on March 16.

28.05.2006 Maailma kylässä -festivaalilla lauantaina vieraillut tasavallan presidentti Tarja Halonen osallistui "Terveisiä jostakin Suomesta" -korttikampanjaan, jossa vaaditaan päättäjiä toimimaan aktiivisemmin köyhyyden poistamiseksi.